Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 October 1897 — Twenty-Six Years Ago. [ARTICLE]

Twenty-Six Years Ago.

Friday's Dally. Twenty-six years ago to-night began the greatest fire of modem times*, perhaps the greatest of all times in the value of the property destroyed. It was the burning of Chicago. The writer was then a resident of Englewood, then a suburb, now an integral part of the great city. There is a remarkable similarity between the weather then and what -we have now. There had been a long period of hot, dry weather, and for several days before the fire as well as during its continuance, a heavy wind blew from the southwest, even as it blows today. The city was largely built of wooden buildings, everything inflammable was as dry as tinder, and with the steady gale of wind, things were ripe for the great conflagration. It began the night of Oct. Bth, continued all night and all the next day, and took everything in its path, buildings of stone and brick, of supposed fire-proof construction, burning as readily in the fearful heat, as though they were built of wood. Over 2,000 acres were burned over, 17,500 buildings were destroyed and nearlysJOO.OOO rendered homeless. The loss was estimated at $196,000,000, and 250 lives were lost. The fearful desolation of the burn, ed district, the thousands of homeless and hopeless people wandering aimelessly about, leaves a picture in the minds of those who saw it on that fearful October 9th, that no lapse of time can ever efface.